38 ON THE TRACK OF THE MAIL-COACH 



tolerably sure, the coffee or commercial room of 

 Sherman's time ; and that and some of the bedrooms, 

 without fireplaces, which were survivals of the original 

 building, gave an idea that, as measured by modern 

 wants, the old-fashioned inns were not without their 

 discomforts. Eats were plentiful. 



As signs and relics of the old Bull and Mouth, the 

 modern Queen's Hotel bore on its front wall two 

 enormous tablets ; the larger, sixteen feet high and 

 eight feet wide, richly moulded, contained the follow- 

 ing inscription : 



' Milo, the Cretonian, 



An Ox slew with his fist, 

 And ate it up at one meal. 



Ye Gods I what a glorious twist !' 



On the smaller (four feet high and five feet wide) 

 figured a fine young bull, modelled apparently on Paul 

 Potter's immortal work at the Hague, and beneath it 

 the grotesque masque of a hiiman mouth. These 

 tablets were presented in 1887, by the Postmaster- 

 General (the Eight Hon. H. C. Eaikes, M.P.), to the 

 Guildhall Museum as memorials of an old City inn. 



Smirke's office opposite regulated the full flow of 

 mail-coaches for exactly nine years. Then the tide 

 slackened. Yet until 1854 a trace of the old days 

 survived in a branch of the department styled the 

 Mail-Coach Office. One of its functions was to deter- 

 mine distances. 



